So You Think You Can Dance: Ranking the Top 5 MalesMonday, July 23, 2007

With Hok Konishi out of the picture, the male hierarchy on So You Think You Can Dance has become a bit murky. All five dancers are unique, have different strengths and, on any given night, I could see any of them pulling out an awesome performance and outshining the rest. How do you rank them? We have to look to the past, to consistency, to weaknesses and identify who is the likeliest to be consistently great from here on out, especially now that they are changing partners every week.

It's almost more important at this point for the dancers to avoid messing up rather than giving an incredible performance. Therefore, these rankings are based, in part, on who I think will stumble and seal their own fate.

I had Kameron high in my rankings up until now. I was wrong. Last week showed his dancing deficiencies and the that his partner Lacey Schwimmer has been carrying him all season. Now that he's going to have a new partner, I fear that the drop-off in quality will be severe enough to get him sent home. He's shown flashes of incredible ability and athleticism, and I have no doubt that with the right performance he could kick some ass, but I'm not counting on it.

As documented by the judges, Neil has really come on these past couple of weeks, first with Wade Robson's comic book dark/light routine and then Mia Michaels' insane goggled-plumber contemporary thing. His solos are still pretty weak (he can spin, he can jump!) but if his couples dances keep it up, then he could keep on advancing. The fact that I put him at four is arbitrary; I don't think he's a shoe-in for elimination in the next two weeks.

Danny certainly came alive last week, but was again placed in the bottom three. No matter what you might think of Danny, he's got a problem. Danny is not resonating with the audience. I think he's been in the bottom three every week, and this is despite a lot of praise from the judges. He is gifted and elegant and has a technical genius of dance that can't be scratched by anyone else on the show. However, this doesn't mean a whole lot if the audience doesn't particularly like you.

What he lacks in experience, he makes up for with effort and personality. The big question mark hanging over Dominic is going to be his ability to perform with someone other than Sabra, who he had created an incredible chemistry with. It may just be that Dominic is infectious and will hit it off with whoever he is paired with. Another thing going for Dominic is that he has clearly sold his personality to America, who are voting for him loyally. He may have to have a catastrophic performance to be in danger of elimination.

#1 - Pasha Pkovalev

Why is Pasha number one? Well, he's been great all season. There's really nothing you can point to about Pasha and say he could do better here or there. It's been a relatively flawless season. Could it be that he is just the best dancer on this show? Or, has he not been challenged enough? You'd think that the Pasha/Sarah couple would have had difficulty in different styles of dance given their respective (and narrow) specialties. But, that certainly wasn't been the case and they were great while partnered. I expect Pasha to advance to the end.